


Braid

by AvengersNewB



Series: A Dream to Call My Own [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Vikings, Arranged Marriage, Fluff, Huddling For Warmth, Language Barrier, Light Angst, M/M, Omega Tony Stark, POV Tony Stark, Past Abuse, Scents & Smells, Sharing a Bed, Viking Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23031277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvengersNewB/pseuds/AvengersNewB
Summary: Viking Arranged Marriage AU - Young omega Tony is traded to the Vikings by Stane, for safe passage and gets married to alpha Steve Rogers the captain of the chiefly vessel.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: A Dream to Call My Own [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655287
Comments: 147
Kudos: 1007





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For [marshmalhoe](https://marshmalhoe.tumblr.com/) who sent me [ this ](https://avengersnewb.tumblr.com/post/611661185450901504/can-you-imagine-number-17from-the-arranged) brilliant ask on viking arranged marriage when I reblogged [ this ](https://avengersnewb.tumblr.com/post/611612005083824128/arranged-marriage-prompts)tumblr post about arranged marriage AU.  
> I instantly fell in love and then they suggested we should make it a/b/o and talked about the amazing head canon of Steve's long hair and well, this happened.  
> I will write the full fledged fic some time later this year, but this one kinda stands on its own, so I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Also as always, huge thank you to [BuckyAboveEverything](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckyAboveEverything) for beta, love you babe ❤

Tony wakes up to muffled sounds around him. The dull pain in his feet sharpens as he turns to sit up and it takes him a minute to become fully alert but he finally remembers where he is.

He is … home. As much as the word stretches in his brain and clenches at his heart, this is what this place is, from now on. Even if there are no windows, or enough air to breathe after a night of indoor open fire or doesn’t feel anything like what Tony remembers of what used to be his home, once upon a time.

The fire in the middle of the house is starting to relight, but it’s still too cold and Tony reaches over to cover himself with the fur on his lap. The fur, that belongs to the big blue-eyed alpha, he recognizes in fear and shudders with a rush of horrifying ideas of what must have happened to him when he was asleep. Then he looks down at himself and realizes with a settling wave of relief, that he is still wearing the same clothes as he has since getting here in the dark hours of the previous morning. He pulls the fur up, breathing in the sharp alpha scent as he wraps it around himself and resigns to close his eyes for a minute with the way the dark scent of sandalwood makes him go dizzy instantly. 

The alpha himself is standing at the other side of the room by the large chest and is apparently changing into a new overtunic. This one is red, as far as Tony can see in the dimly lit room and in it, he looks better than he did yesterday if that is physically possible. As the alpha, his alpha, notices that Tony is awake and turns on his heels to face him, Tony realizes with a flood of unsolicited desire, that his alpha, Captain, Skeppare, or whatever, has unfastened what has been holding his hair up since yesterday and looks absolutely gorgeous with his hair down like this. Tony can’t quite be sure, whether the fact that the alpha, God, _Steve,_ is utterly breathtaking is a blessing or a curse. All that he knows right now, is that the tall man with sky blue eyes and golden blond hair is coming toward Tony and the desire and appreciation of his looks die down immediately. 

His heart is pounding really hard when he finally reaches this side of the room and Tony almost flinches when Steve kneels next to the bed and stretches his hand out to Tony.

It’s a comb, he finally fathoms, after blinking a few too many times and it is meant for him, so he reaches over and grabs it clumsily. He knows that the Norse Gaels take personal grooming really seriously and wonders if his alpha is unhappy with his unruly hair, running his free hand over his hair almost absentmindedly. He then looks back at Steve who is looking at him with cautious eyes and he shakes his head because he doesn’t know what flétta or hár could possibly mean.

Steve wraps his hand around Tony’s fingers clenching the comb and raises it to his hair. He pretends to brush his own hair a few times and there is something insanely earnest about the innocent way he looks as he does it. He then lets go of Tony’s hand and braids a lock of his own hair quickly and undoes it before Tony even gets a chance to admire his handiwork. 

He wants Tony to comb and braid his hair. He is sitting at Tony’s feet on the floor, and from all the marital responsibilities including the sickening tedious ones, he only needs Tony to do his hair properly. Tony has no notion of how to braid a proper flétta for a proper skeppare but he can’t let the alpha, his alpha, down for such minor matters. 

He can at least try. He can fight and he can hold on, as he always has. He has survived Stane and despite being hundreds of miles away from the only hometown he has ever known and being practically sold as a safe passage prize, is still alive, fed and relatively safe. He can’t give up now. He can’t give up ever.

He runs the comb through Steve’s hair and breathes in the infuriatingly amazing scent with every stroke. He tries to weave the perfect blond strands into what he remembers from his mother’s side braid at least four times before he finally gives up and does a simple braid at the back. He seems to be failing at it, like almost every other thing in his life, and the fact that he can’t do something this simple breaks his heart a little. 

Steve stands up and sits on the edge of the bed. He runs his hand over his hair and his face lights up when his fingers touch Tony's pitiful craft. He likes it, Tony muses, with a sudden wash of calm and he manages to smile at his alpha, for what he realizes is the first time, ever.

Steve smiles back and reaches for Tony’s hands. Tony doesn’t mind this time and watches Steve as he brings Tony’s fingers to his lips and blows on them a few times to make them warm before finally brushing them over his lips for a fraction of a moment and Tony’s whole body catches on fire from the sensation. 

Steve then tidies the fur around Tony’s shoulders and leaves for his day, wearing his hair as Tony has made for him, as clumsy and untraditional as it must look. Something warm and raw builds up in Tony’s chest and a voice he has never heard fills the inside of his head.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for giving it a try, and I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> The name of the series is inspired by [At Last](https://youtu.be/nqS2zYoDb34) by Etta James.
> 
> I'm [avengersNewB](https://avengersnewb.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, come talk to me :)


	2. Hold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So another bit of the Viking Arranged Marriage AU? :)
> 
> I was planning to make these one-shots, but I think each new one relies on the previous ones, yet the whole thing stands alone as well, so it kinda feels right to be marked complete. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this one too, and a quick warning that it gets a litttllleee bit more angsty because well, it's me okay? so please mind the added tags!
> 
> Thank you so much to marshmalhoe for all the detailed research <3 hope you enjoy this one!
> 
> And BuckyAboveEverything love you so much and thank you for the beta <3

Tony wakes up with cold hands and prickling numb toes. 

It’s still dark inside, with no light streaking in from the small hole of the roof, and the fire is still alight, so it must be early in the night. Tony turns to his side and is confused by the flickering image of his sleeping alpha, as the realization dawns on his hazy brain that he has in fact never seen him asleep in the past fortnight. 

Steve always wakes up early; too early in Tony’s opinion, and waits for Tony to wake up, not that quietly most of the time. He is always occupied with something rather important when it gets completely dark outside, so Tony spends the hour before he falls asleep. He lies bed and watches Steve as he clenches his jaw reading the wooden letters, or chewing on the end of his stylus when he seems to be stuck with something he is trying to write. It’s rather calming to observe him like that, cheeks colored from sitting too close to the fire, hair down, only in his undergarments. To listen to the melody of his deep breaths; to inhale his soothing scent. Or it has become so, after the first couple of nights, since Tony became certain that his alpha was not interested in paying attention to him before bed, especially the type of attention Tony is not interested in either; mostly.

Right now though, he looks nothing like the alpha that makes Tony’s heart pound in his chest, when he walks into the house every evening or the man that people seem to get out of the way of, the few times they’ve walked together in town. He looks like a little boy. An angel as one might say; so peaceful, so … safe.

Turning his face back to the ceiling, Tony wonders if he would ever get used to the cold. He’s been frigid for so long, it has to be second nature by now, and yet he can’t quite remember the last time he had felt his toes properly. Months ago, it must be, the last time he woke up in his own bed and got dressed in his own clothes, the last time Jarvis held him tight and whispered in his ears, that he would be fine, that it would be alright, that they would meet again, someday. He has not been warm since that cloudy morning they left Rome, when he watched Jarvis, standing outside the front door of the mansion, as the carriage went on hastily and Stane scolded Tony for turning back in his seat, because _noble omegas sat properly in public_. 

That had been the last time, Tony can certainly tell now, as most of what he remembers from being on a ship sailing across the Atlantic is the cold. Chilling winds from the ocean that were nothing like what Tony had expected from a ‘sea breeze’, thin covers and light clothing, and so little food that he couldn’t tell sometimes if he was lightheaded from hunger or just frozen. The weather has been constantly awful since he has got here and it is going to get worse as the winter goes on, considering how much closer to the north they are now, compared to Rome, and it’s not much help that he has gotten so scrawny over the past months he can count his ribs in the mirror, even when he is wearing his overtunic. 

Tony closes his eyes, trying to go back to sleep but even the insides of his eyes are cold and he has to open them again. He wonders if his feather quilt would’ve helped if he had it now, or his camel wool coverlet that Jarvis used to bring out of the linen chest as soon as the harvesting season began. He thinks about walking in the vineyard, as the workers filled the large buckets with grapes, the lazy autumn sun coloring the sky gold, and the gentle wind ruffling his hair. He thinks about his mom, and her sweet caramel scent, about not being afraid, not worrying about the next meal, not shuddering with every filthy look Tiberius sent his way, every time he set foot on the deck, and something wrenches at his heart and tightens his chest as tears start to prick his eyes.

He pulls the fur up, and turns on his side, sniffling absentmindedly and his almost frozen blood stops running through his body completely, when he sets eyes on his alpha, awake and sitting up, instead of the angelic boy who was sleeping a minute ago. 

I woke him up with too much shuffling around, he tells himself blinking at Steve looking taller every second as he nears, and wonders if he is the type of alpha who only shouts when angry or he has more forceful means of showing his displeasure. Tony hates how scared he suddenly is, trembling all over with his teeth chattering, and he does the only thing he can think of to put a barrier between himself and the alpha; he closes his eyes.

But no one starts to growl. No strikes to the side of his face like Stane used to do when Tony made him frustrated enough, and no strong hands twisting his wrist until he screams from pain. Tony waits with his eyes closed for a few minutes, hoping stupidly that Steve would just go back to his bed, but the sound of his breathing and the faint sandalwood scent do not move away. Tony takes a deep breath, and a few more after that, before he presses his teeth together so they stop the pathetic chattering, and opens his eyes. 

Tony wishes he could stop crying. He wishes he was not frozen and shaky like this so he could at least sit up. He wishes he could smile back because it feels unfair to cry before these concerned eyes, and he wishes, so hard, that he had read at least one book on Norse Gaels language in addition to the numerous engineering ones he had stolen from his dad’s library, so he could at least understand what Steve is trying to tell him right now. Beyond _le do thoil_ which is the most surprising of this whole situation, as Tony can’t remember the last time an alpha has used the word _please_ when speaking to him. 

It’s a surreal feeling, Tony thinks, to have a choice. To be able to say no, despite the odds because the big alpha— _his_ big alpha is asking a question and is saying please, but not wanting to. It’s something completely novel and out of this world and utterly natural yet, the tugging he feels within his chest that makes him want to give everything he has to Steve, and say yes, no matter what he is asking right now. 

Steve asks his question again, gesturing between them as he stands up. Tony nods one more time, and that’s the last thing he remembers for the next few minutes, or hours, as thoughts run away from him and he loses the track of time, blood rushing into his ears and his head spinning more than when he suffered from seasickness during his early days on the ship.

Steve lies in the bed, pulling Tony in, and Tony curls up to him, as if it’s something he’s been doing all his life. Steve runs his palm over Tony’s back and something breathtaking tremors through Tony’s core, an unfamiliar heat that swirls inside his chest and sits low in his belly. He blinks a few times and waits for the tension and dread to rush but they don’t seem to exist in the narrow space between Steve’s body and his. There is nothing much there anyway. It’s just Steve and his dizzying scent, the brush of his beard against Tony’s cheek and his soft voice, whispering words that Tony doesn’t know but understands the meaning of. It’s peace and calm and something Tony has long forgotten the name of but can feel under his skin.

He lays his head on Steve’s arm, breathing against the strip of skin between the lapel of his undertunic and is just about to fall asleep, astonished that he can feel his fingertips again after so long, when he finally realizes it.

This is how it feels to be warm. 

Once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for giving it a try, and I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> I'm [avengersNewB](https://avengersnewb.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, and I love to hear from you including asks and prompts so come talk to me :)


End file.
